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A Republican May Test Odds as an Outsider

Published: April 21, 2010

COCOA BEACH, Fla. — Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida darted out of the Tallahassee rain on Tuesday, dragging a band of reporters to his office before answering The Question: Will you leave the Republican Party to run for the United States Senate as an independent — and why are you considering it?

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Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida and his wife, Carole Rome Crist, at a North Miami school last week.

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Marco Rubio, a Republican Senate candidate in Florida, spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February.

“Things change,” he said.

And how. In a matter of months, he has gone from a party favorite to a pariah for his moderate approach, while his opponent Marco Rubio is now a front-running magnet for both Tea Party activists and the Republican establishment.

If he chooses to run as an independent, Mr. Crist would be betting that the prevailing political logic of the moment is wrong — that despite the Tea Party’s rise, the broader electorate still wants the pragmatic approach that propelled Barack Obama to victory here.

Leading a campaign that would most likely lack major fund-raising and a party’s street-level support, Mr. Crist would be running in the hope of turning out “the silent majority” that Richard M. Nixon identified in 1969. Experts say the governor’s odds are long, but not impossible.

“There is a huge gap between the leadership, at both the elite and grass-roots level, and your mainstream Republican voter in this state,” said Daniel A. Smith, director of the political campaigning program at the University of Florida.

Mr. Crist has only hinted at his intentions. He has until April 30 to decide, and some of his closest confidants — including his former campaign manager, George LeMieux, whom Mr. Crist appointed to the Senate when Mel Martinez retired — say he has not tipped his hand.

Many Republican officials at the county level describe the governor as hunkered down. But a trickle of clues have made a Crist run with no party affiliation look more likely.

Most visibly, Mr. Crist angered Republican lawmakers by vetoing legislation that would have eliminated tenure for Florida public school teachers and tied their salaries and job security to student performance.

“I believe the die is cast,” said Ron Book, a lobbyist and fundraiser for Mr. Crist’s Senate campaign. “I believe he has already made his decision to run as a nonparty affiliate.”

A Quinnipiac poll from last week suggested for the first time that Mr. Crist was running roughly even with Mr. Rubio as an independent, with the Democratic candidate, Representative Kendrick B. Meek, several points behind.

And Mr. Rubio may have more trouble ahead. An investigation into accusations that he used state party credit cards to pay for personal expenses while serving in the Florida Legislature continues to widen; on Wednesday, the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times reported that the Internal Revenue Service was looking into Mr. Rubio’s tax records.

Winning as an independent will be tough for Mr. Crist, even tougher than it was for Joseph I. Lieberman in Connecticut. Mr. Crist faces stronger, better financed opponents than Mr. Lieberman, in a state where voter registration tilts against him.

Senator Lieberman’s run as an independent in 2006 was bolstered by the 44 percent of Connecticut voters who were neither Democrats nor Republicans, and by a registration advantage for his former party, the Democrats. But only 22 percent of the Florida electorate, as of February, are not Republicans or Democrats, and Democrats have a registration advantage of more than 650,000 voters.

That means Mr. Crist will have to win voters across the political spectrum, at a time when partisan anger has intensified.

“I didn’t think that the discourse could be more toxic this year than it was in our race, but it seems to be heading in that direction,” said Sherry Brown, the campaign manager for Mr. Lieberman in the 2006 general election. “Anyone running alone will need an enormous amount of money to be heard above the screaming.”

Mr. Meek stands to benefit from the Republican infighting, and both he and Mr. Crist now find themselves defending the same issue: government efforts to jump-start the economy.

Mr. Crist’s hug with President Obama at a rally for federal stimulus may be the image Mr. Rubio would like Floridians to remember. But Mr. Crist has spent much of the past year highlighting efforts to ease economic burdens, with a proposed back-to-school sales tax holiday, for example.

Here on the Space Coast, a mostly Republican area with higher-than-average unemployment, his efforts seem to have gained some traction. Mr. Crist held a meeting here two months ago, proposing that the state spend $32.6 million to support private space exploration and recruit new businesses as NASA’s shuttle program winds down.

He also criticized Mr. Obama, demanding that he “provide more than just a photo-op to ensure that America remains a leader in space innovation.”

Even Republicans supporting Mr. Rubio — like Barbara Davis, chairwoman of the Brevard County Republican Party — say the governor has tried to help. “I know he is doing his best,” Ms. Davis said.

Independents and Democrats at the Cocoa Beach Pier on Wednesday were more welcoming. They said an outsider candidacy by Mr. Crist might give Floridians a way to protest partisan politics. “People are upset with the whole system, and we need more than two parties,” said David Steranko, 39, a registered independent and Internet marketer of vacation packages. “I would really like to see our government stop bickering so much and work on our problems more.”

An adviser close to the Crist campaign, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said an independent bid would have to start out with a bang — possibly with a surge of advertising. The adviser said it would let the governor broaden his message to traditionally Democratic issues like the environment and to more populist elements of his record, including his efforts to stop utilities’ rate increases.

But money remains an issue. Fund-raisers like Mr. Book will not say whether they plan to stick with the governor if he bolts from the party, and Florida campaigns are especially costly.

Steve Schale, the Florida director for the Obama campaign in 2008, said it could cost $1.5 million a week for statewide advertising, which would give Mr. Crist less than two months of strong airtime with his bank balance of $9 million in December.

What he has in his favor is name recognition — and, with an independent run, the power to attract news media coverage.

“I’m sure he’s got to be considering in the back of his mind, if he goes this way and he wins, he’s arguably become this transformative figure in American politics,” Mr. Schale said. “I think he’s the only guy who has the potential of pulling it off.”

Gary Fineout contributed reporting from Tallahassee.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 22, 2010, on page A14 of the New York edition.